Monday 19 July 2010 19.06 EDT
First published on Monday 19 July 2010 19.06 EDT

England cricketers risk boarding the plane to Australia for the Ashes in October with the distraction of not having signed their central contracts.

There had been high hopes that a meeting at Lord's yesterday between the managing director of England cricket, Hugh Morris, and the chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, Angus Porter, would lead to an accord being struck.

However, despite talk of "very good progress" in the negotiations, it is understood that both parties have decided to push back sign-off until October. "We are reasonably close but there are some more details that need to be worked through," Porter told Digger.

One reason for the delay is the attempt to broker a three-year contract template in an effort to avoid the perennial negotiations. Yet that has been the ambition for some time and there may be suspicions of a similar breakdown in talks in yesterday's meeting since it did not translate into final contracts being submitted for approval.

"We're now working on contracts for October 2010 when they come due, rather than trying to rush something out that will only have two months to run," Porter added.

For now that seems an eminently sensible strategy. But if there is any slippage at all in that timetable then England's players risk heading Down Under for what Shane Warne, Australia's all-time leading Test wicket-taker, has described as "their best chance ever" of retaining the Ashes with their minds on administrative matters.

Behind every great man ...

Toni Poole, AKA Mrs John Terry, has perhaps a better chance of representing England in future than her husband. Whereas Terry is among those whose international career is under the spotlight following his atrocious defending in the World Cup match against Germany last month, Poole is awaiting selection for a home international. She is rather a handy dressage rider and has achieved qualification for the all-England event at the College Equestrian Centre in Keysoe in three months, having placed well in a series of British Dressage-affiliated competitions.

Perhaps amusingly, given Terry's difficulties against the Germans in Bloemfontein on 27 June, she owes her success to a horse called Diamond Fritz.

Fix probe

Interpol has not ruled out the possibility that its trawl through computer and mobile telephone equipment seized in coordinated raids in the Far East last week could lead to evidence of matches having been fixed at the World Cup. A month-long operation in Malaysia, Macau, Hong Kong, mainland China, Singapore and Thailand led to the seizure of $10m (£6.6m) and the arrests of 5,000 people allegedly involved in criminal gambling syndicates.

Illegal betting in the Far East has been linked with several incidents of football corruption in the past and the volumes of cash involved in betting on the World Cup would have made certainty of outcome particularly lucrative. Although match-fixing is not a central focus of the Interpol investigation, officers will notify Fifa and other forces around the globe if it is suspected.

Tables turned

David Lampitt, Portsmouth's chief executive and the former head of the Football Association's compliance department, will find himself in an unfamiliar position if the Fratton Park club can finally contrive an exit from administrative receivership. That is by no means certain, following Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs' challenge to the administrator's Comp-any Voluntary Arrangement last week. But even if it does transpire it is not the last hurdles Lampitt must face. The gamekeeper-turned-chief executive must appeal to Football League regulators and provide evidence Pompey will be capable of fulfilling their fixtures.

Chemically enhanced

ITV4's choice for musical accompaniment to some of its excellent coverage of the Tour de France caused Digger to receive a nudge and a wink. What could producers have been driving at in playing Star Guitar by the Chemical Brothers to accompany the global sports event most associated with doping? The looped vocal in that track is "You should feel what I feel, you should take what I tell you" – so make up your own mind. However a spokeswoman for ITV said yesterday that the bit about taking whatever had been taken out and that, not for the first time, Digger was drawing unrelated inferences "like a teenage boy in a bedroom".